Pitt Meadows-Maple Ridge MP Marc Dalton said the latest federal budget is going to make life financially tougher for Canadian families.
The Conservative doesn’t anticipate Prime Minister Marc Carney’s Liberal government to fall over the budget announced this week, despite how much it adds to the national debt, expecting the NDP will either support it or abstain from the vote.
“We (Conservatives) can’t support his budget. It carries the biggest deficit of any budget outside a COVID year,” said Dalton.
He said it was surprising when the forecast $62 billion deficit actually came in at $78.3 billion.
“Those are big numbers, but what does it mean to taxpayers,” asked Dalton, and then tried to frame the size of the budget shortfall.
That deficit is more than the government collects from the GST in a year, he noted.
“Just the interest we are paying (on the national debt) is more than government spends on health care transfers to the provinces,” he said. “It adds to inflation, and adds to the high cost of living that Canadians are already feeling.”
With no plans to stop borrowing, the federal debt is projected to hit $1.35 trillion by the end of this year. The interest charges will be $56 billion this year, while health transfers are $55 billion, according to the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.
“Our economy has been stagnant for 10 years, and Canadians are finding it hard,” said Dalton. “You’re making a good paycheck on paper, but at the end of the month, ‘Where did it all go?’”
He said that adding more to the national debt is like a household that is living off of credit cards.
“It (the budget) really does impact every single person,” said Dalton.
Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne delivered the first budget under Prime Minister Mark Carney, calling it “generational in its ambition.”
“There is no place for withdrawal, ambiguity, or even standing still,” Champagne said on Nov. 4, “only for bold and swift action.”
The $580.9-billion budget includes new $38.6 billion in added spending, but also factors in cutting 40,000 workers from the federal public service, roughly equal to 10 per cent of the workforce. These cuts are from normal attrition and retirement, as well as “further action” the government is taking to rein in spending.
Major five-year spending packages include a $115-billion infrastructure plan and a $30 billion defence outlay, the most in decades. This new defence spending is meant to help Canada meet its two-per-cent NATO spending target this year, and put it on a path to meeting the five-per-cent target set for 2035.
There is $25 billion for housing over the next five years, which Champagne called the most “ambitious housing plan since World War Two,” with a goal to double housing construction in the next 10 years.
He said this budget aims to overcome uncertainty in the economy that is a result of U.S. President Donald Trump’s trade policies.
“Around the world, tariffs have increased, growth is slowing, and trade relationships are being tested,” he said. “All of these constraints are being felt across the country by Canadians in their daily lives.”
Dalton said the tariffs are not an excuse Carney can use for the record deficit.
“He won the election saying he could handle Trump, and negotiate deals,” said Dalton. “But we’re seeing forestry mills closing, and our auto sector is being hollowed out.”